Second St Albans is one of the most interesting, though difficult to reconstruct, battles of the Wars of the Roses. It witnessed more attempts at tactical innovation, and manoeuvring, than any other battle of the period, the unusualness of this probably being one of the reasons that contemporary chroniclers found it almost impossible to describe what happened, particularly in the later stages of the engagement. Indeed the details of much of the action still remain the subject of debate to the present day, one of the advantages being that it provides much opportunity for experimentation and flexibility on the wargames table.

THE CAMPAIGN

In 1460 after a brief period of uneasy peace, the struggle between Lancaster and York flared up again into acting warfare. Richard Duke of York, head of the Yorkist faction was in exile in Ireland whilst Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick ("Warwick the Kingmaker") had occupied the English possession of Calais where he was resisting the attempts of the Lancastrian Duke of Somerset, aided by the former Captain of Calais, a professional soldier named Andrew Trollope, who had switched to the Lancastrian side in 1459, to winkle him out. A period of cross Channel raiding ended with Warwick making a successful landing in Kent, occupying London, and capturing the ineffectual King Henry VI after defeating his army at Northampton (July 10th).

Richard of York returned in triumph from Ireland, but now overplayed his hand, failing in attempts to persuade the lords and commons to depose Henry and give the throne to him instead. A compromise was agreed, whereby Henry was to remain King for his lifetime (likely in the circumstances to be predictably short!) and on his death the crown was pass to Richard of York and his heirs.

This settlement failed to reckon with a number of factors, not least that King Henry's tigerish French wife, Queen Margaret, was still at large in the North of England. She had with her their eight-year-old son, Edward, Prince of Wales, and a number of the Lancastrian nobility. Having no intention of seeing her son disinherited, Margaret set to work to recruit an army, enlisting the Northern magnates such as the Earl of Northumberland, Lords Roos and Clifford with their tough Border levies, and the retainers of a large number of other nobles including the Dukes of Somerset and Exeter, and the Earls of Devon and Shrewsbury. Other troops came from further afield, including some Scots and a few foreign crossbowmen and handgunners.

In what may well have been a deliberate ploy to lure Richard of York north before he was fully prepared, the Lancastrians began devastating his Yorkshire estate. Richard reacted furiously, heading north with about 5,000 hastily levied men. On December 29th in an engagement whose details are obscure, but which probably involved an ambush of some kind, Richard was defeated and killed near Wakefield. His head, along with those of his 17-year-old son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland and the Earl of Salisbury ,were struck off and spiked above Micklegate Bar in York, Richard's derisively topped with a paper crown.

Leadership of the Yorkist cause now rested with Richard's eldest son, the 19-year-old Edward, Earl of March. When news of the disaster at Wakefield reached them, the Yorkists forces were widely separated. Edward himself was on the family estates around Wigmore on the Welsh Border, whilst Warwick was in London. If the Lancastrians could move quickly they might be able to defeat their divided opponents in detail.

It is remarkable that in the 1460-651 campaign the Lancastrians showed more flair and grasp of strategy than on any other occasion during the Wars of the Roses. Until the action at Wakefield, for example, they had never won a battle and they were now to put into a effect far more cohesive strategy than anything they had previously attempted. It seems highly unlikely that any of the predominantly young Lancastrian nobles such as Somerset and Exeter, who never showed any particular military capacity on any other occasion, should have been responsible. Nor are suggestions that credit should be given to Queen Margaret supported by any evidence. Most probably, the success which the Lancastrians were enjoying was due to that remarkable, but largely unknown, professional soldier, Andrew Trollops whose advice seems largely to have been followed by the relatively inexperienced Lancastrian Commanders.

The strategy now developed involved a double thrust towards London. Whilst Queen Margaret and the main force advanced from the North, a "second front" would be developed in Wales, where Jasper Tudor with a mixed Welsh, Irish and mercenary force would strike at Edward in the Marches, and then move eastwards to link up with the Queen. This plan could well have struck a fatal blow at the Yorkist cause, but delays and difficulties in coordinating the Lancastrian forces gave the Yorkists a little time to prepare. Edward who proved to be a considerably more capable commander than the Earl of Warwick, smashed Pembroke's army at Mortimer's Cross (February 3rd) and began to march eastwards to support Warwick against the main threat presented by Queen Margaret's army. The question remained whether Warwick could survive until assistance arrived .

The main Lancastrian army, commanded at least nominally by the Duke of Somerset, and accompanied by Queen Margaret and the Prince of Wales, set out southwards from York about January 20th. Its numbers have been variously estimated, and in fact are impossible to calculate with any certainty, but it was certainly a massive force, perhaps as many as 30,000 men at one point.

The Lancastrian march was accompanied by widespread looting and devastation. How far this was the result of deliberate policy and how much the result of the uncontrollable actions of the large number of criminals and neer-do-wells who associated themselves with the Lancastrian army in search of booty is uncertain, but the large number of Border and Scottish troops with the Lancastrians would have found the prosperous countryside of the English Midlands too inviting an opportunity to miss. In any case, there was probably no other means of supplying such a large force.

Leaving behind them a swathe of destruction up to 30 miles wide, the Lancastrians headed south, following the route of the Great North Road, via Beverley, Grantham, Stamford, Peterborough and Luton, all of which felt the scourge of Margaret's troops as the Lancastrians, in the words of a chronicler "swept onwards like a whirlwind from the north". However, even though they had been reinforced en route by a number of Midlands Lancastrian nobility and their retainers, the Queen's army probably suffered overall a serious reduction in numbers, as many of the troops deserted with their plunder.

The Earl of Warwick seems to have been slow to react to the threats, though he was probably initially too weak to do very much about it. Eventually, on February 12th, the Duke of Norfolk, mustering a large number of his East Anglian retainers, and bringing with him the captive King Henry, presumably to ensure that he was not rescued by Lancastrian supporters, joined Warwick and the remainder of his army near St Albans. Once again, sources are silent concerning the strength of the Yorkist force: a total of some 9-10,000 men seems most likely.
Large Picture (slow 66k)

Warwick was evidently uncertain which route the Lancastrians would now take, though it was probable that they would pass through the important road centre of St Albans. The Yorkists seem to have spent the next four days fortifying a position north of the town on Barnard's Heath, covering the approaches to the town, whilst sending a force of about 200 archers, reputedly local men commanded by a butcher, to occupy Dunstable, some 12 miles to the North East, to give warning of any Lancastrian advance.

However, the Lancastrians moved quickly, and caught their opponents off-balance. The outpost at Dunstable was surprised, surrounded, and killed or captured, none of the Yorkists apparently escaping to carry warning to Warwick. Trollope (for it seems likely that the strategy was his) now decided on a bold stroke. Instead of confronting Warwick head-on in his strongly prepared position, he led part at least of his force in a night march to approach St Alban from the North-West, along the line of the old Watling Street, and to outflank the Yorkists in the process.

The plan worked perfectly and dawn on February 17th found the Lancastrians advancing on what they hoped was an unsuspecting foe.

The Battle
Wargaming the Second St. Albans